Lyell Highway

Lyell Highway
Basic data
Operator:	THIS
Start of the street:	Brooker / Midland Highway Granton ( 42 ° 45 ′  S , 147 ° 14 ′  E )
End of street:	Henty Road Strahan ( 42 ° 9 ′  S , 145 ° 19 ′  E )
Overall length:	289 km
States :	Tasmania
Lyell Highway at the Queenstown exit

 Map with all coordinates: OSM | WikiMap

The Lyell Highway is a road in the south of the Australian state of Tasmania , which leads from Hobart via Queenstown to Strahan .

Surname

Its name is derived from Mount Lyell , a mountain in the West Coast Range near Queenstown . Copper ore was found there at the end of the 19th century , the extraction of which led to the founding of the city of Queenstown.

course

From Hobart to the central highlands

The highway begins in Granton , a northern suburb of Hobart on the south bank of the Derwent River . It runs upriver west to New Norfolk , where it crosses the river. There are Glenora Road (B62) on the south shore and the Boyer Road connected (B10) on the north shore. From there the Lyell Highway leads northwest through the hill country to Rosegarland , where the Gordon River Road branches off to the west, and on to Hamilton . A few kilometers before the city branches off the Hollow Tree Road (B110) to Bothwell , which then leads onto the Lake Highway (A5) and on to Launceston .

Through the central highlands

Still along the north bank of the Derwent River, the road continues northwest, crosses the Clyde River , the Ouse River at the settlement of Ouse and the Dee River and leads to the former center of the dam construction, Wayatinah .

When the trunk road was built, it followed earlier tracks and roads in the Victoria Valley immediately north of Ouse, exiting the Derwent River and Ouse River valleys, and climbing into the hill country through the towns of Osterley , Victoria Valley, and Dee before joining the route of today's Highways at Brontë . This route passed along the Dee Lagoon and close to several other lakes, notably Lake Echo . Today's road there is narrow and not paved. When the dam projects were expanded and reached the settlement of Tarraleah in the mid-1940s , the trunk road was re- routed and now runs along the Derwent River to Tarraleah, so that the dam construction sites could be better reached with large trucks. At Tarraleah, the road leaves the gorge of the Derwent River on a steep ramp to the north, to meet the old route again at Brontë.

At Brontë, the highway turns again to the northwest and the Marlborough Highway (B11) branches off north towards Great Lake , where it meets the Lake Highway. This road is very exposed and must not be used in winter road conditions.

A common side trip is 14-Mile Road (C601), a dirt road that crosses the Nive Plains just beyond Tarraleah. It leads first through the steep Tarraleah Gorge and meets the highway a few kilometers behind Brontë. This abbreviation is not recommended because the road is narrow, unpaved and is often used by log trucks.

In winter road conditions there is a risk of black ice on the entire route through the central highlands , especially in the densely forested section west of Ouse, but you have to expect icy roads on the entire route to the west coast. The trunk road is usually snow-covered in the area around Derwent Bridge almost every winter , which can occasionally lead to the connection being blocked for a few days. This applies to both the new route via Tarraleah and the old route via Osterley - Lake Echo - Dee. The risk of heavy snowfall is also the reason for the high delineator posts along certain sections of this road.

At the entrance to Derwent Bridge, the road runs exactly between Lake St. Clair in the north and Lake King William in the south.

To the west coast

These are the road sections west of Derwent Bridge and Mount King William . The highway runs through Franklin Gordon Wild Rivers National Park , through the West Coast Range and reaches Queenstown.

Just west of Derwent Bridge, the road climbs in many tight curves on the eastern slopes of Mount Arrowsmith . This section is very accident-prone.

It was not until the 1930s that the highway reached Queenstown and was not paved by then. It is called West Coast Road on postcards from the 1940s and 1950s . Particular care should be taken on the final steep descent to Queenstown, as the road there is not only potentially covered with ice and snow, but it is also narrow and very winding.

Due to its altitude, this section of the highway over the plateau between Derwent Bridge and Mount King William is often closed in winter due to ice and snow.

With the regulation of the King River and the creation of Lake Burbury , the road was re-routed to the narrowest part of the reservoir, where a bridge could be built at Bradshaw .

West of Queenstown, the Lyell Highway runs on the western slopes of Mount Lyell for three kilometers to the northwest, where the Zeehan Highway (still A10) joins. From there it leads in many curves in the valley of the King River west down to the west coast and finally reaches Strahan at Macquarie Harbor , where the Henty Road (B27) connects to the north. In this last, 41 km long section, the Lyell Highway is numbered B24.

literature

• Blainey, Geoffrey: The Peaks of Lyell , 6th Edition. Edition, St. David's Park Publishing, Hobart 2000, ISBN 0-7246-2265-9 .
• Charles Whitham: Western Tasmania: A Land of Riches and Beauty.
• Steve Parish: Australian Touring Atlas . Steve Parish Publishing, Archerfield QLD 2007. ISBN 978-1-74193-232-4 . Pp. 58-59